


Happy Birthday, Yuuri

by muttthecowcat22



Series: YOI Event Oneshots [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Cake, Canon Compliant, Day 7, Fluff, For the most part, Happy Birthday Katsuki Yuuri, M/M, One Shot, Yuuri and family, Yuuri with Victor, yuuribirthdayweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 14:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12866946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muttthecowcat22/pseuds/muttthecowcat22
Summary: Yuuri never voluntarily tells anyone about his birthday, including Victor.





	Happy Birthday, Yuuri

**Author's Note:**

> For Yuuri's 25th birthday, 11/29/2017. I originally only posted this on tumblr but decided to add it here to stay organized. It's very short, but I hope you enjoy reading it!

Today, Yuuri is eleven.  He blows out the candles on his birthday cake.  It takes him two breaths to extinguish them all.  The ten or so skaters who practice at Ice Castle surround him. They sit on the benches encircling the rink, each with a slice of cake of their own.  Yuuri’s favorite part of the cake isn’t the actual cake itself but rather the fresh strawberries that decorate the top.  Yuuko and Takeshi know this and donate all of their own strawberries to Yuuri.  Even the other skaters that he rarely talks to donate their strawberries and wish him well, both for his birthday and for his upcoming novice competition.  Bright red strawberry juice drips off his chin and stains his shirt when he smiles. His mom and Ms. Minako smile as they watch from the corner.  He feels happy; he feels like they all care about him.

Today, Yuuri is eighteen.  He plucks another strawberry from the top of his slice of cake and licks it clean of icing. An empty bowl sits on the table beside him that still faintly smells like the katsudon that filled it a few minutes prior. Yuuko and Takeshi sit close to him, his dad and Mari further down the table, as his mom runs back and forth between them and the kitchen. It’s a quiet birthday, just the way he likes it, more of an excuse to eat his mom’s delicious cooking than anything else.  He remains quiet, allowing Yuuko and Takeshi to discuss the rink and their plans to marry in the spring.  He wants to remember this: his friends, his family, the onsen, all of Hatsetsu.  He might never see everyone together like this again.  This time next year, he’ll be in the United States.  It’ll all be worth it, he tells himself.  It will be worth it.

Today, Yuuri is nineteen.  He’s eating a plate of steamed broccoli at a small table in the university cafeteria. The broccoli tastes incredibly bland. He’d like to add more salt to it, but he can’t seem to find a salt shaker in the entire room.  At least it’s hot; the steam fogs his glasses if he leans in too close.  Flocks of students pass his table in both directions, where he sits by the doors.  Some of them look happy; most of them look tired, bent over from stress.  He decides to call his mom.

 _Happy Birthday, Yuuri._ Her voice sounds winded but warm.

“What are you doing? Do I need to call back later?”

_No, no.  I just finished mopping the floors.  I need a break anyway.  Do you know that Mari bought strawberries today and is eating them without you!  I told her I wasn’t making katsudon, not without you here._

“Mom! Don’t tell me that!” Yuuri says, while smiling beneath his phone. He talks with her for the remainder of his meal, learning the latest news about who all had moved to Hatsetsu and who had moved away, about Yuuko and Takeshi, Ice Castle, business at the onsen. It feels nice, easy, to speak in Japanese again.  When she finally lets him go, Yuuri is one of five students remaining in the cafeteria. The silence picks at him, and he stands up to leave.  He recognizes three of the five students from his classes, but none of them even turn to look at him.  He hasn’t told anyone in America that today is his birthday after all.

Today, Yuuri is twenty.  He expects his birthday to pass similarly to the year before, with a single phone call from his mom.  He is perched on his bed trying to finish a paper before he walks to the cafeteria for dinner, when the door to his dorm room swings open.

“Happy Birthday!” Phichit yells.  He’s balancing a plastic carton of strawberries atop a box of cupcakes from the supermarket.  

“How did you know that it’s my birthday?”

“You may try, but you can’t hide anything from me, Yuuri Katsuki!”

“That’s terrifying.”

They eat the vanilla cupcakes in their shared room, crumbs and rainbow sprinkles accumulating on the floor.  Phichit’s hamsters scurry across the tile, sniffing out most of the larger crumbles. Yuuri flips over the carton of strawberries to find the bottom layer of berries covered in fluffy, green mold.  He laughs to himself, then openly at Phichit, who grimaces back at him.  It’s the thought that counts.

Today, Yuuri is twenty-four.  He sits on the carpeted floor near his flight’s gate at Sheremetyevo International Airport. The airport is crowded, all the seats taken and swarms of people flowing between the different gates.  The muted light of an overcast sky streams into the terminal from the large floor to ceiling windows along both of the walls. Victor hasn’t called, and Yuuri doesn’t expect him to, not until he has a report on Makkachin.  

He never told Victor his birthdate.  Yuuri almost forgot about his birthday himself, his worry for Makkachin overshadowing everything else.  It’s better if Victor doesn’t know anyway.  Yuuri cherishes everything that Victor has already given him.  He can’t bring himself to ask Victor for any more of his effort or his time.  He boards the airplane in near silence, content to listen to the bustle around him, and sits by the window.  Mari nor anyone else from his family has contacted him either.  His worries about Makkachin drain away as he falls asleep to the rocking of the plane.

–

Victor can finally sigh in relief when the vet releases Makkachin, alive and energetic as ever.  He holds her in his lap as Mari drives them back to the onsen.

“And to think that today is Yuuri’s birthday.  Mom didn’t even call him, for the first time,” she says.

“Today is Yuuri’s birthday?”

“He didn’t tell you, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.”  The admission waries Victor.  He should have asked, or Yuuri should have told him – or something.  He’s too tired to think.  He knows he’s missing something.

Mari shakes her head, just slightly.  “He never tells anyone.”

–

When Yuuri finally touches down in Japan, Victor and Makkachin are waiting for him, healthy and alive.  Yuuri almost cries when he sees them – almost.  Victor is beautiful, warm, and kind, his eyes weary but bluer and brighter than Yuuri has ever seen them.  Victor acts like he never wants himself and Yuuri to ever be parted again.  

Before they leave the terminal, Yuuri walks over to Victor’s abandoned seat to pick up any bags that Victor might have brought with him.  Instead, he finds one of his mom’s homemade birthday cakes sitting in a box in the chair.

“Happy Birthday,” Victor says quietly from behind him.

And, what is Yuuri supposed to do?  Why does Victor act like this?  Victor staying with him will never work out in the long term.  Yuuri knows this.  He’s already decided. He’s decided.

He stares at the cake for a minute before he notices that something looks off about it.

“Half of the strawberries are missing,” he says.

Victor wraps an arm around his waist from behind and leans his head on Yuuri’s shoulder.  “Makkachin and I might have gotten a little hungry while we waited.”

Yuuri laughs.  He loves Victor.  He loves only eating half of the strawberries.  That night, when they finally lay down in the banquet room at the onsen, Victor still tastes like the other half of the strawberries, or rather, the few extra strawberries he slipped away on the train.  

It’s going to be so difficult to let him go.

Today, Yuuri is twenty-five.  Only by a few hours, though.  He wakes up freezing cold in the pitch dark, as a searing 2:00 beams at him from his phone. A lump of every blanket and sheet on the bed lays beside him with a tuft of silver hair peeking out one end.  

Yuuri pats the lump.  “Victor, give me at least one blanket.”

The lump grumbles then goes silent again.

Yuuri rocks the lump with both hands.  “It’s my birthday! You can’t let me freeze!”

Victor shifts loose from some of the blankets, rubbing his eyes.  Yuuri quickly grabs the first one his hand wraps around and drapes it over his legs.

“You deserve a birthday kiss, then,” Victor says as he rolls to face Yuuri.

“Eww, no, your breath smells.”

“ _Yuuuuri_ ,” Victor whines and takes a quick lung to kiss Yuuri on the cheek, even as Yuuri tries to push him away. Yuuri laughs then lets silence fall around them again as he holds Victor in his arms, brushing his fingers through his hair.  Victor falls asleep again with his head on Yuuri’s shoulder.  As Yuuri lays down with Victor in his arms, Victor’s hand lands on the pillow next to him.  The dim streetlight outside the window outlines his long fingers and glints golden off of his ring.  It’s surreal.

Yuuri’s dreamed of a birthday like this so many times.  He’s not alone.  He’s finally not alone, only after realizing that he was never alone to begin with.

He buries his face in Victor’s hair for a moment before wrapping the blankets around them both and closing his eyes once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I always appreciate comments and kudos! I just recently opened a [tumblr](https://muttthecowcatridesagain.tumblr.com/). Feel free to contact me there, if you'd like.


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